Sydney Barnes
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 England (Eng) |
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| Batting style | Right-handed batsman (RHB) | |
| Bowling type | Right arm medium fast (RMF) | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 27 | 133 |
| Runs scored | 242 | 1573 |
| Batting average | 8.06 | 12.78 |
| 100s/50s | 0/0 | 0/2 |
| Top score | 38* | 93 |
| Balls bowled | 7873 | 31527 |
| Wickets | 189 | 719 |
| Bowling average | 16.43 | 17.09 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 24 | 68 |
| 10 wickets in match | 7 | 18 |
| Best bowling | 9/103 | 9/103 |
| Catches/stumpings | 12/0 | 72/0 |
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Test debut: 13 December 1901 |
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Sydney Francis Barnes (April 19, 1873 - December 26, 1967) was one of the finest bowlers in cricket history- perhaps the finest. In 27 Test matches, playing only against Australia and South Africa (no other countries having yet achieved Test status), he took a phenomenal 189 wickets at an average of 16.43 runs per wicket. He is ranked first in the LG ICC Best Ever Test Bowling rating, a calculation based on getting good results against good teams for a prolonged period. [2] Richie Benaud selected him for his all time cricket XI.[3] He is also the only cricketer to be selected to play for England while playing league cricket. Barnes' style of bowling is virtually unknown today. He chiefly bowled medium pace cutters, but varied his delivery speed considerably and was sometimes quite fast. He used his tremendously strong hands and wrists to deliver both leg cutters and off cutters, achieving prodigious amounts of movement off the pitch at any pace. Some contemporary accounts of his bowling describe him as having "swung" the ball, but the movement in question was a result of side-spin and would today be termed "drift" instead [4].
Sydney Francis Barnes was born on April 19, 1873 in Smethwick, Staffordshire. He was the second of five children whose father worked for the same company in Birmingham for 63 years. He briefly played county cricket for Warwickshire and, in 1902 and 1903, Lancashire, meeting with only moderate success by his own standards despite several superb performances. However, after a contractual dispute near the end of 1903, Barnes played no more first-class county cricket, instead playing for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Championship and the Lancashire League. His record for Staffordshire was 1441 wickets at a cost of 8.15 runs per wicket, and his average in the Lancashire League was even lower.
Barnes was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1910. His 49 wickets against South Africa in 1913-14 is still the record for any bowler in a Test series, although he only played in four Tests. In all, he took 189 Test wickets; his average of 16.43 and strike rate of 41.65 are the second lowest (after the incredible 10.75 and 34.11 of George Lohmann) of any bowler who has taken at least 75 Test wickets. In the second Test at Johannesburg, he became the first man to take more than 15 wickets in a Test, claiming 8-56 and 9-103 for match figures of 17-159. Only Jim Laker's 19-90 in 1956 has since surpassed this feat. [1]
After taking eight wickets for the Players in the 1914 Gentlemen v Players, it was to be 13 years before Barnes again played first-class cricket, in the first of nine appearances for Wales between 1927 and 1930. He took 49 first-class wickets for Wales, including 7-51 and 5-67 in an eight-wicket triumph over the West Indians in 1928, at the age of 55. He also made two first-class appearances for Minor Counties in 1929, recording an outstanding innings analysis of 32-11-41-8 in a drawn match against the South Africans at Stoke-on-Trent.
Barnes' final first-class game was against MCC at Lord's in 1930, when he was 57 years old; he took 2-57. He played minor county and league cricket well into his sixties and died aged 94 on Boxing Day, 1967 in Chadsmoor, Staffordshire.
